My man, Boogaloo Joe Jones, was one of the first soul jazz artist I ever heard. It was Joe who turned me on to the whole thing during my days of almost exclusively classic rock, reggae and the jam scene. Not that I didn’t dig R&B and Jazz back then but I never really had a “jones” (pardon the pun) for the stuff. I got a compilation disc of Joe and that was it… forever converted.

His real name was Ivan Joseph Jones but his debut as an artist was with the name Joe Jones. At that time, there were at least 5 other guys in popular music using the name Joe Jones. So, upon his second release he started billing himself as Boogaloo Joe Jones. It was to distinguish himself from the others and it made sense given a song on that album was titled “Boogaloo Joe”. It can get a bit confusing because later in his career he started using Ivan “Boogaloo Joe” Jones, so there is material with all 3 names on it. Joe was a pioneering guitarist during the Boogaloo movement of the late 60’s. Back then they didn’t know what to call it. It was blues mixed with soul music, some early rock n’ roll and it definitely bordered on jazz given the strong blues influence and the fact that it was all instrumental with some improvisation sprinkled in to the arrangements. So what did they choose? …Psychedelic Soul Jazz. Not a great genre name in hindsight but it was descriptive nonetheless and suited their needs at the time. It eventually would be dubbed Boogaloo with the help of the man himself, Boogaloo Joe. Joe had plenty of originals but some of his best tunes are his reinterpretations of classic popular music. In many ways he help create that model in soul jazz. Below is “I Feel The Earth Move’ from the What It Is album. This tune is originally a Carol King song. You may recognize the sound of the sax player as Grover Washington Jr… a Philly legend who is famous for both his own work like “Mister Magic” as well as collaborations with guys like Bill Withers on “Just The Two Of Us”.

Here is one of Boogaloo Joe’s originals that’s pretty laid back. It’s the title track from the same album… “What It Is”.

Here is a great cover of Bill Wither’s “Ain’t No Sunshine”. Cool version of a great song.

Another original but this one is hot. It just has a really great push to it all the way through. This one is “No Way!” from 1971.

Here is a song from Joe’s famous sideman/session player, organist Butch Cornell. It’s called “Sunshine Alley”. It was also recorded on another one of Butch’s famous gigs for saxophonist Stanley Turrentine’s CTI hit Sugar.

Hey! You there!

Most of these posts are not exactly HiFi quality but they are definitely best experienced through some decent speakers or headphones. Don't let that keep you from enjoying it though. Good tunes are just good, no matter what you're listening through.